Will artificial intelligence (AI) serve humanity — or will it spawn a new species of conscious digital beings with their own agenda? Will AI take matters into its own hands? These are just some of the questions that George Musser tackles in his new book Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe. His book has been described as a revelatory exploration of how a “theory of everything” depends upon our understanding of the human mind. Musser (geor...@musser.com) will discuss his new book with SWINY chair David Levine (@dlloydlevine). Neuroscientists have painstakingly built up an understanding of the structure of the brain. Could this help physicists understand the levels of self-organization they observe in other systems? These same physicists, meanwhile, are trying to explain how particles organize themselves into the objects around us. Could their discoveries help explain how neurons produce our conscious experience? For his book Musser interviewed AI researchers, neuroscientists, quantum physicists, neuroscientists and philosophers to get a reading on the quest to unravel one of life’s deepest mysteries: What is the nature of consciousness? And is it a uniquely human phenomenon? Exploring these questions and more, Musser describes the extraordinary interconnections between quantum mechanics, cosmology, human consciousness, and artificial intelligence. Combining vivid descriptive writing with portraits of scientists working on the cutting edge, Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation shows how theories of everything depend on theories of mind—and how they might be one and the same. | 
